Re: Secure Computing statement of assurance

From: Crispin Cowan (crispinat_private)
Date: Sat Jul 27 2002 - 21:34:59 PDT

  • Next message: Westerman, Mark: "RE: Secure Computing statement of assurance"

    Russell Coker wrote:
    
    >>Essentially this means that they have provided something to placate
    >>us,
    >>    
    >>
    >Who has it placated?  Certainly not me!
    >
    It was apparently intended to placate. Whether it did so is entirely 
    another matter :)
    
    >>but which they can reverse at any point in the future should it
    >>fit a new corporate strategy.  From a commercial view point it's quite
    >>reasonable, but from the GPL/development point of view it is
    >>essentially a useless gesture.
    >>    
    >>
    >Even from a commercial point of view it's not reasonable.  If someone tried 
    >to screw over one of my clients in such a fashion I'd react in the same way.
    >
    In what way is SCC screwing anyone over? They are not fully contributing 
    the Type Enforcement patent to the open source community, but AFAIK, 
    they are not actually obliged to do so (modulo any obligations between 
    SCC and the NSA).
    
    >>From a PR point of view it's potentially even more damaging to SCC
    >>(depending on whether the wider geek/development community interprets
    >>it as an honest attempt to resolve the issue or an under-handed
    >>trick).
    >>    
    >>
    >I haven't seen any evidence of honest attempts to resolve the issue from SCC.
    >
    I interpret what I have seen as honest attempts to resolve an ugly and 
    complex situation. That the result is not totally pleasing to people who 
    are dependent upon a piece of code with cloudy intellectual property 
    status does not make SCC's efforts bad faith.
    
    I also suspect that most of SCC's efforts are happening in private. Were 
    I in their shoes, I would not choose to discuss substantive issue in 
    such a complex situation in public.
    
    Crispin
    
    -- 
    Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
    Chief Scientist, WireX                      http://wirex.com/~crispin/
    Security Hardened Linux Distribution:       http://immunix.org
    Available for purchase: http://wirex.com/Products/Immunix/purchase.html
    
    
    
    _______________________________________________
    linux-security-module mailing list
    linux-security-moduleat_private
    http://mail.wirex.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-security-module
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Jul 27 2002 - 22:28:49 PDT